The leader who encourages exceptional performance is
focused on getting the best from everyone on the team. This attention to the development and
performance of each individual means that the collective performance of the
work unit is often exceptional.

The leader who focuses for high impact knows that
their attention to the goals of the team and their discipline in holding that
focus will keep the team on track, no matter what is happening inside the
organization.

Ask employees how supervisors could improve the performance review process and you’ll probably get more responses than you know what to do with. This article addresses six common mistakes managers make and how they can improve.

What makes a leader great? One key skill is the ability to garner the support of others. And good leaders realize they must continually enhance their skills and set an example for the rest. This brief article offers six steps to becoming a better leader.

Are you unsure of where to begin identifying your burning hassles? Try asking your staff or colleagues what’s impeding their work. Remember to use these ground rules: No blaming or accusing! Everyone should feel free to speak up without being criticized, and everyone can help brainstorm the solutions.

Whether it's the NHL, NFL, WNBA, major league baseball -- name your league or team -- there is always something going on in professional team sports. When they are playing effectively, sports teams teach us much about building the Total Team. We'll look at some of those lessons.

Personality clashes, work style differences, deadline stress and petty irritations can take a toll on a team’s productivity and cause morale to plummet. That’s why managers play such an important role in leading the team or project. If your managers are struggling to keep their teams focused and respectful of each other, take comfort in the fact that they’re not alone. This article details six steps that your managers can employ to effectively deal with conflict within a team.

The childhood birthday party game Pin the Tail on the Donkey, with blindfolded children assisted by supportive parents to achieve the mark, smartly illustrates the elements of coaching to redirect employee performance. Apply these tips to create a constructive coaching environment and increase employee confidence.

Many organizations define performance management — procedures for monitoring employee performance — narrowly or ignore it altogether. Progress is not always smooth, and resistance can cripple a design team. This article provides four fundamentals that can ensure a current system’s success or be used to create a new performance-management system.

Delegation directly affects the bottom line. When it is done well, tasks are completed at the most efficient and least expensive level. Are your supervisors skilled at delegating? Or is productivity slowed by supervisors who try to do it all?

By systematically providing access to key information, and by using training appropriately, you can avert potential disasters, bolster employee morale, and cement a solid foundation for business success.

This kind of guidance can come in the form of interviews, tightly interwoven tips and hints, overviews, demonstrations, wizards, decision guidance, calculation tools, and other systematic interactions that intelligently aid people in achieving their goals.

Providing employees with feedback is an important part of every supervisor’s job. People need to know what they’re doing right or wrong and how they can do better. But often managers provide ambiguous details or no positive reinforcement. This article explains how to give workers feedback to improve their performances.

Influencing effectively, gaining support for ideas and plans, listening to understand objections, and collaborating to determine a solution -- these are key responsibilities of both parents and human resource professionals. Here are four steps to take to handle these responsibilities well.

Promoting from within is a sound strategy for most businesses. It’s a way to keep high performers in your organization, retain the company’s investments in human capital, motivate the staff to see that success is rewarded and fill top spots efficiently. But promotions can backfire if they’re handled incorrectly. Putting your stars into roles that they’re not suited for or moving them up before they’re ready can quickly erase all the benefits of promoting from within. This article explains how doing your homework before, during and after the transition helps ensure your organization and employees both get the full benefit of promotions.

But promotions can backfire if they’re handled incorrectly. Putting your stars into roles that they’re not suited for or moving them up before they’re ready can quickly erase all the benefits of promoting from within. By doing your homework before, during and after the transition, your organization and employees will get the full benefit of promotions

Evaluating employee efficiency is a process, not an event. Then why is it usually such a dreaded - and often poorly managed - workplace function? Employers may look at the process as a time drain, perhaps even superfluous. Meanwhile, workers may not understand its potential benefits and may even fear subjective judgment. In reality, performance assessments are objective ways to improve both employee and organizational performance. A comprehensive system correlates behavior with results, helps justify salaries, promotes worthy performers and, if necessary, terminates poor ones. This article examines how to conduct the performance evaluation process painlessly.

Many organizations take great strides to improve customer service, but neglect to examine the service their employees provide each other — or internal customers. By failing to look at how workers serve each other, businesses are missing opportunities to enhance their external clients’ satisfaction. This brief article looks at ways to foster internal customer service.

Saying no does not have to be awkward or damaging to relationships. Saying no can actually help you do your job better. That's right; saying no can be a good thing. Negotiators say no all the time. The negotiators who are skilled at saying no are often the most respected and popular in their field because they are more likely to craft an agreement that meets the needs of both sides.

Having a great project idea, and even having the perfect people to do the job, offer no guarantees that your project will succeed. According to Murphy, if anything can go wrong, it will. But with the right planning and preparation, you can ensure that your project sidesteps any pitfalls and succeeds. In this issue, we'll offer some important tips to skirt Murphy's Law.

When professionals think of the word “team,” they probably think of one thing: people pulling together for a common cause. But that’s where the commonality ends because each group differs in its objectives and the way it operates. Moreover, each team’s lifespan varies: Some start out strong and die quickly, while others work effectively for years. This article discusses when organizations should assemble a team, spend time rebuilding it or simply pull the plug.

Today's leaders face countless challenges, familiar and unfamiliar. But by following just a few clear principles, leaders can stay on course despite the pull in many directions. We look at five such principles: (1) Create an optimistic culture; (2) Promote collaborative relationships; (3) Encourage exceptional performance; (4) Focus for high impact; (5) Cultivate trust.

Many people have benefited from a mentor in various stages of their work life. Providing opportunities and guidelines for these relationships can help individuals and the organization can benefit as well.

It's time to plan for a major event, a triathlon. How will you prepare for this goal of a lifetime? And how about new employees at your organization? Are they being prepared to hit the ground running, or are they slowed down at speed bumps not of their making?

Many supervisors have trouble creating a workplace where there is virtually no turnover and they no longer have to pay steep agency fees to fill difficult positions because qualified candidates are waiting in line to work for their companies. This article explains how helping workers balance their careers and personal lives will help employers craft a productive workplace.

There are traditional measures HR uses — the number of people hired, turnover rates and the number of training hours delivered — but this data focuses on activity, not necessarily value. This brief article explores how using more meaningful metrics better illustrates the value HR brings to your company.

A leader sets the tone for employee performance throughout the organization. These six specific actions -- which involve vision, values, stories, branding, and other elements -- can lead your staff to higher performance through a work culture that inspires.

During the past 20 years, meetings have proliferated in corporate America at a rather alarming rate. For instance, the average business professional was in several meetings about six hours a week in 1982. By 1995, the same business professional spent more than 12 hours a week in meetings. Unfortunately, more than 50% of meeting time is wasted. Corporations often have to carry the huge cost of these meetings. This article offers basic strategies that can help businesses curb meeting waste.

The Gallup Organization reports that only 16% of employees feel actively engaged at work. Organizations that want to develop that sense of engagement ensure that their managers and supervisors know how to delegate smartly.

For insight into the body language of pride and shame, scientists studied the behaviors of judo matches at the 2004 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The research report in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences stated that body language of blind and sighted athletes showed the same patterns.

Would you like quick, practical tips and bits of wisdom on five important topics? Here is some of our latest thinking on communicating, delegating, managing one's career, transforming team conflict, and working with communication styles, taken from five new NetSpeed Leadership modules.

There are plenty of reasons to be a good boss. Perhaps, most important, employees with good bosses perform well and are fully engaged in their work — which creates results that support your business. But also keep in mind that, when people jump ship, they generally leave because of their boss, not their job. Researchers have even linked a poor relationship with a supervisor to depression and other mental health problems. This article offers some of the secrets of top leaders’ success.